Taking the knife to the fatted oinker

News that the country is living beyond its income seems even to have reached our nation’s seat of government in Washington, D.C. Both the Republicans in Congress and the Democrat in the White House have proposed “massive” cuts in federal spending.

These spending cuts are invariably inflated by multiplying times 10 (cuts over 10 years), while the budget is mentioned only for the current year. The end result is that the D.C. propagandists make the cuts seem 10 times bigger than they really are.

Both parties are, of course, only trimming the fat, although they mean to set the little porkers squealing in different departments. The Democrats want to cut military spending and increase taxes, while increasing funding for pet projects like education. The Republicans want to trim a little bit here and there, while preserving government’s “essential” functions, and leaving taxes alone.

Both are liars and frauds accustomed to living in the perpetually funded State of Denial, where “here a tweak, there a tweak, everywhere a tweak, tweak” restores prosperity for future generations (or at least their pals and voting blocks).

Gazing out of their ivory towers of government, our “representatives” see the never-ending prosperity of those employed to “manage” the rest of the nation and those who have come to beg for a bigger pull on the public teet for their favorite corporate or private welfare.

Were their vision extended to the areas they supposedly “represent,” they would see a nation losing hope for its children, its grandchildren and, indeed, its current generation. Jobs outside of the tallowed halls of government are hard to find and harder to keep. Businesses are difficult to start and harder to grow. And a myriad of government regulations are there to “help” but simply add to the difficulty in both cases. And let’s not forget the taxman, who must be paid to keep the tallowed halls of government well-greased and properly functioning.

Oh, please! The time has come to acknowledge that a tweak here and there with the budget-surgeon’s knife is not going to restore Uncle Sam and Aunt Millie to even the status of lipstick on a pig. The party is over. It’s time to take the knife to the fatted oinker and cut government back to what it was intended to do.

And that is?

I’m glad you asked. That is to serve the private sector.

The private sector is that part of America that is not visible from the tallowed halls of government in D.C. And it wants some recognition that government exists to serve the rest of us – not the other way around. Contemplate that thought for a while, because you work for us, and we’re getting mighty tired of the tallowed halls flushing our hopes and dreams down the D.C. spending toilet, and then being billed by the plumber when he’s called to clean up the mess.

By cut, we mean stop. Cease. Desist. Unhand. We want useless federal bureaucrats gone, forever. Here are a few places to start:

Abolish the federal Education Department. Education is a local function. And big-name colleges have billions locked away in investment funds. Let them pay for poor students to attend their ivory towers.

Abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. Environmental concerns are a state issue, because that’s where the environment is. The EPA is responsible for such boondoggles as ethanol, which costs more to produce and transport per gallon than the energy it yields.

Repeal the Endangered Species Act. Endangered species are a state issue. The ESA impoverishes rural counties, which should be harvesting their timber and selling it to fund their schools. Instead, you have made rural counties welfare recipients so “environmentalists” from the city can drive through there once a year and gawk.

Cut troop maintenance expenses. Europe and Asia should have recovered from World War II and Korea by now. Let them pay the freight. And having troops on the DMZ in Korea didn’t deter the North from building the bomb, did it?

Unions have no place in government “service.” They were allowed to exist by an executive order from John Kennedy. They can die from an executive order from Barack Obama.

Gold-plated government retirement benefits are an anathema to a private sector that long ago was forced to move to self-funded retirements. Get with the program. Maybe government employees invested in the private sector for their retirement would have a bit broader perspective on the nation’s economic well-being and the crippling cost of government regulations.

The tough issues like Social Security, of course, needn’t be touched. That’s because all the extra funds you’ve collected for payroll taxes and Medicare these many years went into the congressional lockbox, right? The lockbox isn’t full of IOUs that have to be repaid from general fund taxes, are they? Because out of all this turmoil, there’s something you can take to the bank: If the lockbox is full of your worthless promises, the old people and the retiring boomers are gonna cut your gonads off in the next election and put them in the lockbox, right alongside your fancy congressional retirements and those of your lobbyist pals.

And so, when the old people and the retiring boomers come calling at the next election, remember to take comfort in what they say in Chicago: “It’s nothing personal. It’s just bidness.”